Movin’ on up

November 5, 2013

The last time I shared photos of the upstairs room here, it looked like this:

And for the past month or so, it’s looked like this:

The couch that was in our last living room now lives in this space, along with our bright orange TV stand and, on the other side of the room, our desk and office stuff. Before we moved in, I worried about how we’d make this room make sense — it’s chopped up in weird sections and the walls are super short — but the furniture arrangement we’ve settled on seems to be pretty functional. It’s a cozy space to watch TV or work on the computer, and the unusual room separation makes the dual-function purpose actually work.

So the room is functional, yes. Attractive? Far from it.

This room will be the biggest design challenge in this house (except for maybe the bizarre stairwell), and it’s one we likely won’t tackle head-on for a little while. Right now, it’s a mess of beige and unfinished trim and random pops of orange. That said, I knew there was one way to make it just a big more visually pleasing in the meantime.

Yep. When in doubt, hang stuff on the walls. Jamie and I finally broke out the hammer and nails this weekend and hung several items in the upstairs room (which I’m realizing needs a better name: the den? the loft? the office/tv room?).

First up, we hung Jamie’s laserdisc/record collection in a grid, which works well in the boxy room. Try and ignore the row of DVDs — that’s a temporary solution.

On the other side of the room, we hung some artwork and pieces that were previously in the man cave at our old place. The bright colors make the orange furniture and accents seem a little bit less random now.

The photographs, which I took during a trip to Austin, are hanging above my favorite part of this odd little room: built-in storage! The fact that we have a cabinet solely for board games makes me super giddy.

On the little section of wall next to the staircase, we have this functional art to greet guests and invite them to pop open a beer. So thoughtful.

And, last but not least, we hung Jamie’s Vertigo poster to the left of our couch, which is probably the biggest area of wall in the entire room. Again, ignore the junk below the poster. We’re still figuring out where everything goes.

As you can see, the room is still very much in progress, but the artwork has made a world of difference already. Bare walls are just too depressing to live with!

Even though we likely won’t be working on this room for months, it seems like an appropriate time to map out what else we want to do in the space. You know what that means? A checklist!

Here’s what we’d like to do in the upstairs room:– Hang art
– Get rid of junk in corner
– Buy new side table
– Caulk cracks in walls
– Paint the walls
– Stain all the wood trim
– Build shelving for DVDs
– Buy or build new desk with more storage
– Replace overhead lighting
– (Possibly) Remove carpet

Boom. It may not look like much right now, but progress is on the horizon.

Plus, we now have the first official room to-do list for the new house. Things are getting pretty exciting!

It looks better already, Katie. And now it’s a cozy, personal place. I can’t wait to see what you do with all the interesting nooks, shapes and textures on the walls! It’a such an interesting place, whatever you ultimately name it. Best of luck